


Love and Burning

by AidanChase



Series: That Good Good HP AU [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Amortentia, Gen, Memory Loss, light takitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 05:18:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidanChase/pseuds/AidanChase
Summary: Taako doesn't do self-introspection.A short one-shot glimpsing a possible Harry Potter universe version of TAZ characters.





	Love and Burning

**Author's Note:**

> I have a specialty and that is AUs. All the AUs. Someone said "TAZ HP AU" and guess what, I've been thinking about it nonstop. Enjoy.

As the parchment airplane memo soared past Taako’s desk, he snatched it from the air and flattened it open on his desk. His baseline look of disdain slowly shifted into one of disgust. He crumpled it up and, with his wand, launched the ball of parchment into the rubbish bin. 

Taako hated going up to Level Three — Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. He’d spent far too much time there about three years ago, while the Accidental Magical Reversal Squad tried to figure out how to undo his terrible mistake. There wasn’t a lot even wizards could do about un-dead-ifying an entire Muggle village, though. 

Since then, after some time of being utterly disgraced in the magical community, the new Minister of Magic had pardoned him and offered him a job. He’d been stunned and suspicious, but he’d also been flat out broke, so he’d had to accept a position in the Department of Mysteries. At least the stuff down here was interesting.

Taako carefully folded up the piece of parchment he’d been reading before the memo came through — a letter from a young wizard who worked a few hallways over in the creepy death-curtain-chamber — and tucked it into his desk drawer. The new intern was too nosy for Taako’s liking, and who Taako flirted with at work was no one else’s business. 

Not that Taako was embarrassed of the quiet relationship he’d been carrying on with Kravitz, but he kept his private life private. There were still people who didn’t trust the Minister’s decision to pardon him for his crimes, and there were, even worse, those who lauded what he’d done, thinking the Muggles had deserved it by nature of being Muggles. None of those people deserved to know who he was or what he did with his time outside of work. Or, to be frank, even during work.

He put his hat on and walked out of his office towards the elevator. He passed a collection of creepy, glowing brains in jars. He tapped on the glass of his favorite — a misshapen purple thing that looked sickly in the glowing green fluid — before passing out of his department and into the elevator. The golden gate of the compartment slid shut and carried him up to the Atrium. The elevator grew more crowded now, and Taako leaned into the back corner. He kept the wide brim of his hat low, preventing any of the others from getting a good look at his face, and preventing him from having to look at their faces — not that he was difficult to recognize. Not too many other wizards decorated their robes with so many precious stones and gold embroidery as he did. The gossip about his wardrobe was the only gossip Taako tolerated.

Eventually, the elevator arrived at Level Three. Taako slipped between two older witches and stepped into the hallway for Magical Regulation. Waiting for him at the front desk was Avi, who was usually down in Transportation, but on occasion did whatever the Minister of Magic asked him to do.

“Avi, my dude,” Taako said, and stifled a yawn, “what was so important you had to drag me all the way up here from my hard work?”

Avi did not laugh at Taako’s jibe about working hard, didn’t even crack a smile. 

“The Minister asked me to send for you personally. We had an issue with one of the Potions-makers going off the rails. We don’t know what he made. She said you should look at it.”

“Oh, that’s cute,” Taako said, trying to let just enough coldness creep into his voice to communicate his displeasure without giving away any of his apathy, “but the Minister knows I don’t do Potions work anymore. If you really need someone from Mysteries looking at it, I’ll send for someone else —”

Avi didn’t seem to be listening. He motioned for Taako to follow him further into the offices. “She was pretty clear it should be you. She said no one knows Potions modifications like you do.”

If that sentence had come from anyone but Avi or the Minister, Taako might have hexed them. But because it was Avi and the Minister, Taako followed Avi through the crowded, tight desks of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. There were days Taako didn’t like working in a poorly-lit dungeon of a department, but when he was up here, he felt grateful for having his own decently-sized office space.

Avi led him through a thick door with a magical seal and into the back, where Potions Permits were approved or denied, where Potion Patents were stored, where Potion-makers experimented with Potions submissions, and where Potion-makers invented their own potions when time permitted. It was probably Taako’s second-least-favorite room in the whole Ministry. At least right now it was empty, all the Potions-makers rushed away to somewhere safer.

Avi pointed him to one cauldron that had something bright orange and bubbling in it. It looked to Taako like it might create a large explosion at any moment, though for now it was covered in a magical seal.

“The Director put that up and took Robbie off somewhere so he could make a list of everything he put in it, but he says he can’t remember all of it. You know how bad he is at writing down his experiments. She said you’d be able to figure out what was in it.”

Taking apart a potion was one of the most difficult sorts of Potions-making, and Taako didn’t like people knowing he had expertise at things. It was easier to play dumb; people gave you less work when they thought you were incompetent. But the Minister of Magic had never been fooled by his attempts at idiocy.

“Fine, fine,” he said, and took his wand from its holster. “I’ll give it a go. No promises.”

Avi left him to his work, which was fine with Taako. A large empty potions lab was kind of an ideal workspace for him. And as much as Taako hated doing dangerous work, at least he had the assurance of being undisturbed.

He took his time with it — time spent here was time spent not doing other work — and eventually found the source of the explosive-nature of the potion. Robbie must have accidentally knocked a jar of faerie fire into a Polyjuice Potion, because even Robbie wasn’t that stupid to add it on purpose. Though why Robbie was making a Polyjuice Potion, Taako didn’t understand. He wondered if he should share that detail with the Minister or just provide her with a half-assed report that left out the important bits. 

He scribbled out his report on a scrap piece of parchment. He told the Minister the source of the mistake and suggested that faerie fire be put somewhere it wouldn’t be carelessly knocked into Potions experiments.

He opened the sealed door and waved the scrap of paper at Avi. “All done, my man. You can let the Director know I’ll be taking a bonus fee for doing something outside my job description.”

Avi shook his head with a small laugh. “That’s not in my job description. Talk to her yourself.” He took the parchment from Taako and followed him back inside. “What was it?”

“Faerie fire,” Taako shrugged. “Nothing too weird.” He showed Avi the cauldron, now a mixture of tar and ash. Even though Taako could magical determine what was inside a potion by deconstructing its properties, the ingredients inside were unrecoverable.

“Did you have to let it burn out?” Avi asked.

“Nah, it just does that when you undo Potions magic. You can’t just reverse a potion. Magic doesn’t work like that.”

“Well, I’m impressed you managed to get it without the faerie fire exploding everywhere. I don’t think I could have done that.”

Taako smiled, easily flattered. He couldn’t lie that as much as he hated people gossiping about him, he loved hearing praise. He tucked his wand back into his robes, and as he turned, accidentally knocked against a smaller cauldron. The lid slipped off and Taako was hit by a strong stench of something burning.

“What is that?”

Avi sniffed and laughed. “Ah, oil and metal. Must be Amortentia. Most potions don’t smell like that, but that’s what it smells like to me.”

Taako frowned and looked more closely at the cauldron. He’d never run into Amortentia before. Self-introspection wasn’t something he cared for, and knowing what “true love” smelled like to him sounded like a terrible idea. Still, he’d thought it might at least have a remnant of his current love-interest. Shouldn’t it smell a little bit like wine, maybe the rusty scent of earth, or the heavy, slightly musty scent of Kravitz’s cologne? But instead, it smelled like scorched earth, like overcooked food. The closer he got, the more subtleties he detected in the smell: the chicken his aunt used to make on his birthday and strong alcohol. But the undercurrent was like charcoal, and he did not understand why.

“What’s it smell like for you?” asked Avi.

“Absolutely nothing, my dude. I’ve got more interesting things to worry about.”


End file.
